SAN
FRANCISCO -- Up against the campaign of a wealthy businessman who outspent
him nearly 10-to-1, a strong progressive candidate nearly won the runoff
election last Tuesday to become this city’s mayor. Some national news
stories depicted the strong showing for Matt Gonzalez as a big surprise. But
it shouldn’t perplex anyone when vigorous grassroots organizing combines
with a sound strategy to get breakthrough results.

Local elections in San
Francisco are officially nonpartisan, and ballots don’t indicate party
affiliations. But the contenders spoke openly of their party labels. The
Democrat in the race, Gavin Newsom, became so worried that Bill Clinton and
Al Gore flew in to campaign for him. In contrast, Green Party member
Gonzalez relied on several thousand active volunteers.

Contrary to all the
conventional media wisdom, the Gonzalez campaign surged to receive 47.4
percent of the votes.

Routinely discounted by
pundits in the mainstream media, the Green Party has been making some
inroads. The party now claims 205 elected officials in 26 states. This year,
Greens won posts ranging from auditor of York, Pa., to alderman in New
Haven, Conn., to city commissioner in Kalamazoo, Mich., to water district
official in Maine.

These are low-ranking
positions, but big political trees can grow from little acorns. That’s
exactly what happened with Gonzalez in San Francisco. His step-by-step
approach, building coalitions along the way, brought him to the point where
he is now president of the city’s powerful Board of Supervisors.

Gonzalez represents the
kind of pragmatic idealism that the Green Party needs. His recent
achievements include spearheading a victorious ballot initiative raising the
city’s minimum wage to $8.50. A strategic thinker, he recognizes the need to
build the Green Party from the ground up while striving to prevent
Republican consolidation of power.

Next year, in California,
the right wing will seek to gain a seat in the U.S. Senate by defeating the
liberal Democratic incumbent. Gonzalez, determined to help prevent that,
says he intends to back Sen. Barbara Boxer’s re-election bid.

Likewise, as the San Jose
Mercury News reported on Dec. 7, Gonzalez has a savvy view of next year’s
race for the White House. In the newspaper’s words, Gonzalez spokesperson
Ross Mirkarimi said that “if Nader runs again for president in 2004,
Gonzalez won’t support him.”

But many Green Party
leaders are insisting on a presidential race next year. At an annual fall
meeting, says a Green Party news release, “members of the Wisconsin Green
Party unanimously endorsed a statement calling on the Green Party of the
United States to run a strong presidential campaign in 2004, while also
maintaining focus on races at the local, state, and federal levels.” The
release noted that similar resolutions had been approved at Green Party
gatherings in Michigan, Iowa and New England.

Some Green activists have
argued that the party’s local campaigns need the sort of media attention and
excitement that was generated by Ralph Nader’s presidential run under the
Green Party banner in 2000. But try telling that to the thousands of Matt
Gonzalez supporters who just achieved the most impressive showing for a
Green Party candidate in history.

If Nader runs for president
again in 2004, his campaign seems doomed to be virtually opposite of the
Gonzalez effort. Nader would be lucky to get half as many votes as his
previous total of 2.7 percent nationwide. A Nader campaign would not offer
voters a chance to wrest the White House away from the right wing. At a time
when preventing a second presidential term for George W. Bush is a historic
imperative, a Nader campaign would be -- at best -- beside the point. At
worst, a gift to Karl Rove.

There has been a lot of
talk among some Green Party leaders about a “safe states” strategy, with the
party’s presidential campaign efforts being mostly concentrated in states
where either Bush or the Democrat has a lock. But that scenario seems to be
a fallback illusion for Greens who don’t want to fully re-examine the
purported wisdom of a Green Party presidential campaign next year.

In the Nov. 24 edition of
The Nation magazine, longtime Green Party analyst Micah Sifry quotes Nader
as pooh-poohing a safe-states approach: “You either run or you don’t. You
don’t say to people in some states that we’re going to ignore you.” And
Nader added that “no candidate will want to be bound by” that kind of
restriction.

For Green Party activists
and their candidate, the apparent benefits of a presidential run may include
the media coverage, which – however inadequate and slanted -- still beats
being ignored. But what’s at stake far transcends such concerns.